Chapter Text
There was a new intern at Middlesea Hospital.
And no one had seen them yet.
Okay, well, that wasn’t entirely true. They’d shown up to work, clocked in, treated the patients they were assigned to, and completed every task given to them. The other patients had no complaints about their work, and it had been well over a month with no incident.
But no one could agree on who they were.
Most of the interns said they didn’t remember seeing anyone new. They’d noticed the change in the workflow, the updated schedules and mentions of a new intern, but they’d all assumed they were just on different shifts from the newcomer.
“Oh, the new intern is on call? I thought they worked opposite shifts from us?”
There were some discrepancies, though, some things that didn’t quite add up. People spotted on the opposite side of the hospital they were supposed to be. Patients thanking interns for the help when they hadn’t seen them at all that day. Strained relationships from people seeming to run away from others, only to not remember anything of the sort later.
“What do you mean? You were just in here!”
The doctors weren’t much help, although that was through no fault of theirs. Doctor Ian hadn’t left his office enough to say anything on the mystery intern, and while Doctor Paige confirmed that there had been a new hire, and they had been showing up to work, she said she hadn’t seen them face-to-face either.
And Doctor Edega… well…
…He wasn’t much help.
All this to say, there was a mysterious, unseen worker running around the hospital.
And Lucia intended to get to the bottom of things.
Whether she was gonna get any help with it or not, Logan.
The first step, of course, was to gather more information. She had testimony from the doctors and interns, and the mystery figure seemed to be avoiding them. So it seemed she’d have to go around to the other patients and see what they knew.
First up: the café!
“Hey kid.” Nicole was wiping down the counter; Lucia made sure to come in during a slow hour. It wouldn’t do if her source was distracted! “You just here to doodle again?”
Shaking her head, Lucia pulled out her notebook, flipping to the page she’d set aside for her investigation.
“Actually, I’m here to ask some questions!”
“Oh, like, for a research project?” Nicole asked, tilting her head. Lucia paused, chewing on the end of her pen out of habit.
“Yeah, kind of, I guess!” She was researching something, and it was a project. “You know how there’s that new intern around?”
“Oh, the ghost?” Lucia rolled her eyes, ignoring the comment from the nearby table, where Cole and Samurai were playing some sort of card game.
Yes, the ghost rumor. One of the theories going around about the mystery intern. It wasn’t the most common one, but it was definitely the most annoying.
“Yeah, I’ve heard about it,” Nicole offered, grinning at Lucia’s transparent annoyance. “Why, you looking for them?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on with them!” Lucia replied, bouncing on her heels slightly. “Have you seen them around?”
“I think they were in here the other day?” Picking up a glass, Nicole started absently polishing it as she spoke. Keeping her hands busy. Lucia began to write.
Visited café
“Some pastries went missing during the lunch rush, but they left some money on the counter. Quite a bit more than they needed to, actually.”
Doesn't understand money?
Lucia paused, then added an extra question mark.
And a little doodle of a coin. Okay, maybe she was a bit bored.
“What pastries were they? And — um, how do you know it was them?”
“Uh… lemon, I think?”
“Poppyseed,” Samurai commented, then placed a card down on the table. Cole looked at it, scowled, then began rifling through his own hand.
“Right, yeah,” Nicole snapped her fingers, nodding. “Lemon poppyseed. I just figured it was them, since Ada came in a little bit after the rush asking how the new intern had done.”
“You didn’t see them?”
“Nah.” Shrugging, Nicole put the glass down, picking up another. “Nothing bad happened that day, though, so I guess they would’ve stepped up if something had?”
“Hm…”
Blends in well (duh)
“Is that the only time you’ve seen them?”
“I mean… I’m sure they’ve been in to see me in the time they’ve been here? But that’d defeat the whole point of the whole ‘mystery intern’ thing if I could answer that.”
That was true…
“Besides. I’ve got other things to worry about than some new hire that’s not causing problems.”
“What about when they start haunting you?” Nicole rolled her eyes this time, turning away with a half-smile at Cole’s question.
“The only one haunting me is you, short-stuff.”
“Wooooooow.” Cole then turned back to the card game, smirking before laying his hand down on the table and looking up at Samurai. Samurai looked at the table, then his cards, then Cole, and very deliberately laid his hand down.
Cole’s smirk immediately fell.
“Dang it.”
“You got any more questions?” Nicole asked, directing Lucia’s attention back from… whatever was going on over there.
“Uh… I don’t think so!” Capping her pen, Lucia closed her notebook, tapping the cap of her pen against her lip. “I just have to figure out who to ask next…”
“…Birds.”
“Huh?” Turning back to Samurai, Lucia tilted her head. “You saw them with Mrs. Stevenson’s birds?” Samurai looked over at her, nodding.
That was something! That was an actual lead! Something she could work with!
“Thank you!” Slipping her pen into her pocket, Lucia rushed out of the café, set on following her next lead.
“There’s a new bird?!”
Lucia had found Mrs. Stevenson in the garden with her husband and birds, watching them flutter around through the sunbeams. It had taken a bit of sitting through the elderly couple’s rambling small talk, but Lucia had been able to follow the lead through.
“Oh yes! A shy one, they are!” Smiling, Mrs. Stevenson squeezed her husband’s hand fondly, nodding in response to Lucia’s blurted question. “I’ve only really seen them from a distance, but the children seem to enjoy playing with them!”
“Ah, yes, the new one… I’ve heard them flying around,” Mr. Stevenson added. Lucia quickly began to scribble down notes, having no idea what to make of this new discovery.
Bird?? Has a bird?? IS a bird???
This opened up so many new questions! Were they like that one intern with the wings, somehow? Were they just a regular bird? No, that didn’t make sense. Did they have a pet? Maybe they were connected to those little yellow fluffy birds that she saw around sometimes!
But, no, they couldn’t be a bird! People had seen them as a person! Without wings, right?
Aghh, none of this made any sense! This wasn’t a lead, it just made everything more confusing! And Samurai had seen the new intern with the birds, not as one!
Scribbling a big, frustrated question-mark on her notepad, Lucia sighed.
“Thank you for the help,” she offered, trying not to sound as dejected as she felt.
“Of course, dear!”
Back to the drawing board.
“No luck?”
Lucia groaned, flopping backwards where she sat on the bed in Hailey’s room, splaying her arms out dramatically. Hailey giggled at the dramatics, kicking her feet idly from beside her.
Having exhausted all of her leads, Lucia had retreated to Hailey’s room, taking consolation in being able to hang out with her friends. Logan was sitting on the floor, watching the two of them with a hesitant smile.
“I’m telling you, it’s a ghost!”
“They’re not a ghost, Logan!” Lucia shot back, sitting up to glare at him. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
“This is a hospital, it makes as much sense as — as anything else!”
“Are you actually saying that someone died here, came back as a ghost, then signed up to be an intern at the hospital they died in?”
“Well we don’t — we don’t know that they’re an intern!”
“Are you saying that Doctor Paige was lying — oh, uh, hi, Doctor Paige!”
Lucia and Logan both waved guiltily as Doctor Paige popped her head in the doorway, seemingly checking in on them. She smiled at them, then shook her head fondly, before waving apologetically and closing the door.
After a few seconds of silence, Hailey started giggling again, breaking the tension between the teens.
“Seriously, though,” Hailey said after a moment, “you couldn’t figure anything out?”
“Not really.” Picking up her notebook, Lucia flipped to her mystery-intern page, showing it to Hailey, with Logan standing up to come look over their shoulders.
It was… a bit of a mess. But whose notebook wasn’t? She’d checked with the other patients, asking them for anything they’d seen. Miner had mentioned having been treated by one of the interns back to back, with them acting confused when he mentioned their last encounter on the second visit. Lucky said he thought he might’ve seen some weird figures by his part of the ward, although he immediately backtracked and said it was probably just the shadows, or maybe the Janitor. Insomniac said he’d seen Samurai wearing blue armor that he didn’t recognize, but he said he didn’t have anything to offer beyond that, so that was a bust.
“Huh… yeah, this isn’t really anything.” Lucia lightly smacked Logan on the shoulder at that, glaring.
“Yeah, well you haven’t been any help!”
“You think they might just be nervous?” Hailey asked. “And that’s why no one’s seen them?”
“Huh?”
“Well, they’re just trying to do their job, right? And they’ve been helping out! What if they’re just scared?”
“Scared of what?” Why would they be scared? They’re an adult, and they signed up to work here!
“Well, you are trying to hunt them down,” Logan reasoned, shrugging and sitting down on Lucia’s other side. “That’s pretty scary. Besides, who says adults can’t be scared! Doctor Ian looks scared all the time!
“Ha-ha.” He did have a point, though… Lucia knew she wouldn’t like being tracked down like this, and it’s not like the mystery intern was causing any problems for anyone… besides minor confusion.
“Maybe you’re right,” she admitted, staring down at her notebook. “I dunno. Aren’t you curious?”
“Curious about what?” Looking up, all three teenagers jumped slightly as Doctor Paige entered the room, knocking on the doorframe as she did. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to overhear.”
“It’s alright, doctor!” Hailey said, hopping up. “You’re back already?”
“Back already? I know checkups aren’t fun, but I didn’t know you were so eager to avoid me,” Paige joked, grinning confusedly.
“But you were just here?”
“No, I… I was doing paperwork until just a second ago…?”
Wait.
“That was them! The mystery intern!” Jumping off the bed, Lucia darted past the doctor, skidding as she swerved out of the room and down the hall in the direction they’d seen what apparently wasn’t Doctor Paige go before.
“Lucia, wait!”
Shoes slapping against the tile floors, Lucia ran with her notebook clutched in her arms, heart pounding in her chest. This was it, finally a concrete lead! Finally, she could figure out what was going on…
Rounding a corner, Lucia saw her target standing next to Doctor Ian, seeming to slightly inch away from him, looking… uncharacteristically nervous. Ian looked confused, trying to ask her something, but she looked to be trying to avoid his questions.
“Hello?”
The not-Paige startled, flinching back like they were about to run.
“Wait, hold on!” Lucia called. “I just wanna talk to you!” Not-Paige froze in place, then looked back at Ian, who now looked more worried than anything.
“Ada?” They flinched at his question, then shook their head, looking… guilty?
“You’re the new intern, right?” Lucia asked, taking a few steps closer. The intern, still looking like Doctor Paige, scooted further away from Ian, but nodded this time, looking between Lucia and Ian. They startled again when footsteps sounded from behind Lucia, and when she turned back she saw Hailey, Logan, and what was presumably the real Doctor Paige turning the corner.
“Oh. Well then. That sure is… something.” Paige adjusted her glasses, looking at the doppelganger in front of her. “I feel like I should be more surprised by this, honestly…”
“You’re not?” Ian called back, his voice strained and pitchy. Paige just shrugged.
The intern seemed to shrink in further on themself with every word, backing against the wall. Lucia frowned to herself.
‘What if they’re just scared?’
“My name’s Lucia. You’ve seen me around, right?”
Everyone fell silent, attention turning back to the intern, who looked over at Lucia curiously. There was a soft humming sound, then… movement. With a gentle glow, the intern seemed to… change. Their form shifted, too quick to be disarming, and covered by the light… until… oh wow that was… a bit weird, if Lucia was being honest.
But also kinda cool?
Standing in front of Lucia, curled in on themself slightly, was someone that looked exactly like her. Same clothes, same hair, same height. The only difference was the eyes, and even that was barely noticeable, only a small spark of gold towards the center. Lucia almost didn’t notice it.
“You’ve been working here, right?” she asked, tilting her head. They nodded, looking over at Ian, then Paige, almost apologetic, or as if looking for… approval?
“Are you a ghost?” Logan asked, earning a half-hearted glare from Lucia again. The copy smiled, then shook their head.
“Told you.”
“Are you magic?” Hailey, this time, leaning forward excitedly. Not-Lucia looked at her, bewildered… then shrugged and nodded at the same time. “That’s so cool!”
“…Yeah, not as surprised as I probably should be,” Paige murmured, stepping forward. “It’s good to finally meet you,” she said to them directly, “uh… do you have a name?”
They shrugged again, this time without an accompanying nod.
“…Right. Uh, well, we can figure that out, but…” she paused, then smiled. “A lot of the other interns have been wanting to meet you properly, so how about we go introduce you?”
The new intern perked up, smiling, and Lucia noticed that their teeth seemed a bit sharper than hers usually were.Cool. They took a half-step towards Paige, but then froze. They pointed at themself with a small frown.
“Is something wrong?”
“If you want to keep looking like me, you can,” Lucia offered. It was kinda cool to see someone that looked like she did!
“Can you look like anybody? Even me?” Hailey asked, rushing over excitedly. The intern looked at her, a little nervous, then with another hum and glow, a copy of Hailey was standing in front of them where the not-Lucia once stood. “Cool!”
“What about me?” With less hesitation this time, they turned into a copy of Logan, smiling hesitantly. The three teenagers crowded around the intern excitedly, this was so cool!
They were, like, a shapeshifter! Take that, Logan, definitely not a ghost!
“You kids should probably go back to your room, okay?” Paige said, once their chatter had calmed down a bit. “Intern, we can get you a name tag, introduce you to the others, and then we’ll let you get back to work.” Seeming to notice how nervous the intern seemed, she smiled. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble or anything! You’ve been helping out a lot around here, we just want to make sure everyone knows you’re here so there’s no more misunderstandings. Is that alright?”
They paused, seeming to think it over… then nodded. They stepped forward, then turned back into Paige with another hum and glow. Was that part of how they shapeshifted? Lucia wanted so, so badly to open her notebook… but, no, she should probably wait.
At least until she could ask them about it all!
“Come visit us in my room later, okay, mystery intern?” Hailey said, bouncing in place. “Please?”
“Wait, that’s it!” Flipping open her notebook, Lucia opened her research page and held it out. “You don’t have a name, right?” They shook their head. Smiling, Lucia pointed to the top of the page, where ‘Mystery Intern’ was written in big bubble letters. “We can call you this! Mystery! Or Myst, for short!”
The intern tilted their head, leaning down to look at the page, then smiled, holding out a thumbs up.
“Alright, Myst it is!” Paige agreed. “Come on, let’s get you set up properly, this time.” Paige turned, gesturing for Myst to follow her down the hallway, which they did. It was kinda weird seeing two Paiges walking next to each other.
Ian seemed to think so too, muttering something unsure to himself before scurrying after the others. Lucia just barely heard the two of them whispering to each other as they turned the corner.
“(Ada this is really weird, right?)”
“(Yeah, but what isn’t around here?)”
“(…Touché.)”
As Logan and Hailey started back towards Hailey’s room, Lucia looked down at her notebook. Pulling out her pen, she scribbled out ‘Intern’ from the top of her page, and added a new bullet point to her list of data:
Magical shapeshifter!! :D
Mystery solved!
Well… sort of.
